(CNN) -- A raid at the headquarters of the Catholic Church in Belgium by police investigating child abuse was "deplorable," Pope Benedict XVI said Sunday.

The pope expressed his "closeness and solidarity in this moment of sadness, in which, with certain surprising and deplorable methods, the searches were carried out" in a letter to the head of the Belgian Bishops Conference, Andre Joseph Leonard.

Police were searching for documents related to allegations of child abuse, a spokesman for the Brussels prosecutor said Thursday.

(NOTE: This article contains disturbing content that may be triggering for some readers.)

(Arbil) - A significant number of girls and women in Iraqi Kurdistan suffer female genital mutilation (FGM) and its destructive after-effects, Human Rights Watch said today in a new report. The Kurdistan Regional Government should take immediate action to end FGM and develop a long term plan for its eradication, including passing a law to ban the practice, Human Rights Watch said.

(NOTE: This article contains disturbing content that may be triggering for some readers.)

Andijan, Uzbekistan (CNN) -- Lying on his hospital bed in Andijan, in eastern Uzbekistan, 65-year-old Khikmatullo Urunbayev, an ethnic Uzbek grandfather from Osh, in southern Kyrgyzstan, had tears in his eyes as he lifted his arm for us to see.

A bullet fired by an ethnic Kyrgyz gunman had shattered his bone a few days before. The agony, he told us, was still unbearable.

Maryland - A new, longer-lasting emergency contraceptive pill moved closer to the U.S. market on Thursday after U.S. medical advisers unanimously backed the one-dose drug as a safe and effective option to prevent an unplanned pregnancy.

Data for the drug, made by the French drugmaker HRA Pharma but to be sold by Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc in the United States, was compelling, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's advisory panel said.

ENOLA, Pa., June 17 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The National Sexual Violence Resource Center was established in 2000 as the nation's first resource center devoted exclusively to sexual violence. For the past decade, the NSVRC has collaborated with sexual assault coalitions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and several community-based and national-allied projects to prevent sexual violence. To commemorate 10 years of service, the NSVRC is holding an open house on Tuesday, June 22.

The Criminal Court of Abu Dhabi, in the capital of the United Arab Emirates, ruled this week that an 18-year-old Emirati woman who accused six men of gang-raping her will herself serve a one-year sentence for consensual sex.

It's one of in the latest in a scourge of reported rape cases in Dubai, The court proceedings were marred by legal travesties, experts say.

Advocates for rape victims say the Georgia Bureau of Investigation's release of photographs, audio tapes and video of interviews with a 20-year-old coed who accused Pittsburgh Steelers' quarterback Ben Roethlisberger of rape is a nightmare come true.

"It certainly seems to me to be unnecessary and almost punitive to the victim," said attorney Carol Tracy, executive director of the Women's Law Project in Philadelphia.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Laura Neuman was raped when she was 18 years old. It took nearly 20 years to identify her attacker, even though he'd been arrested six times before her attack and at least six times afterward.

Alphonso Hill pleaded guilty in September 2002 to raping Neuman and was sent to prison for 15 years. A DNA sample, taken in prison, led to charges in six other rape cases.

(SALEM, Ore.) - State public health officials have filed administrative rules to implement a new law that requires hospitals to offer emergency contraception to female victims of sexual assault. The law, passed as HB 2700 by the 2007 Legislature, makes Oregon one of just nine states nationwide to have such a requirement. It became effective Jan.

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